keeping this short as my important updates have already been covered in other posts
books:
what i talk about when i talk about running was ok. i enjoyed the parts that weren’t about running - writing, owning a bar, murakami’s philosophy on talent vs showing up, being extremely consistent and deciding today is no different than yesterday - all very in-line with how i approach things. unfortunately large chunks of the book are also about running and i found those a bit boring
finally read pride and prejudice!! absolutely hilarious, great descriptions of romantic archetypes that are still relevant today, cool to read the “original fanfic”. also very funny to hear dating discourse communicated in formal 19th century english
never let me go was alright. the prose and depiction of childhood were pretty but i didn’t really like the sci-fi premise. also the kids are written very accurately, by which i mean they were extremely annoying, and i couldn’t stop cringing
loved remains of the day, now one of my all-time favorites. really well-constructed unreliable narrator, examines decades of memories surrounding wwii appeasement / romance / nobility / the narrator’s father, kind of slow until the last ~20 pages where everything unravels and the main character realizes the principles he’s based his life on have destroyed him. actually heartbreaking
everything is tuberculosis was decent. i didn’t get too much out of it because i’ve already listened to john green talk about tuberculosis for probably ten hours, but otherwise a good explanation of the history of tuberculosis and problems with public health
crying in h-mart was okay? found the first half quite slow / very similar to other depictions of second gen asian-american family dynamics. i thought the depiction of grief in the second half was good
other writing i found notable: using chatgpt is not bad for the environment, finally a piece that properly contextualizes the impact of language models and datacenters. llm reasoning via one example, shows that most of the ai progress on math over the last year can be replicated with just 1 training datapoint (my interpretation is that there are no data bottlenecks if you have a sufficiently good reward function). crime and punishment #1, a good overview of recent crime discourse, mostly centered around nyc / sf
movies / shows:
disappointed by the man from earth. often considered one of the best sci-fi movies, premise is interesting (what would a person who’s lived through all of human history be like?), but the side characters were very annoying and i wish they dug deeper into the anthropology / science
watched season 1 of dark. first time watching a german show, very good production quality and soundtrack, though the time travel reveals were extremely predictable if you’ve thought enough about sci-fi
my house has been watching haikyu! at a slow pace. we finished season 1 in january and are around 75% done with season 2 now. it’s kind of incredible how they managed to create a volleyball anime that i find extremely engaging despite having no interest in volleyball? really good at developing a wide cast of characters
watched ne zha, didn’t love it but it’s cool to see chinese animation taking off i guess
the good, the bad, and the ugly is the first western i’ve really enjoyed! beautiful soundtrack and scenery, and i miss the new mexico desert. it’s also my first time watching a movie and wishing two characters (the good & the ugly) were gay
remains of the day was decent. good adaptation of the book, really drives home how many servants were required for housekeeping. ultimately i don’t think it was able to capture the ending as powerfully as the book though, final scene fell a bit flat
other
maxed out a machine at the gym for the first time (hip adductors, 295lb)! hip abductors not too far behind. i’m excited to have very stable legs! my fitness priorities (legs cardio balance flexibility) might be the exact opposite of the typical gymbro. also tried salsa
work has been eventful; we spent a while building tools to summarize model behaviors and then went viral deploying them for the o3 release. i am no longer working on interpretability for the time being but that’s probably a good change
friends decorated 3 cakes for my birthday! <3
so we're back from zero shot to one shot huh. or is this more like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupper%27s_self-referential_formula where you have to pick a good k
dark's later seasons are much better than season 1 i think
wow, what a good set of books! and my opinions/experiences largely line up with yours, having read all of them except the Murakami. I did not love Remains of The Day quite as much as you when I read it, but it's a book that's stuck with me in a way most books do not. I'm also (selfishly) a little glad to see someone else who doesn't love Crying in H-Mart, because I feel like I... just do not enjoy that book in a way many people do
I should read Pride and Prejudice again, that was truly so much better than I thought it would be when I finally read it last year